So is slavery Objectively absolutely wrong? By what standard is it wrong?

You would have thought so, but let's notice god's opinion on the matter changed, depending on the age and society he's being worshipped in. So I guess we'd both have to say that absolute morality doesn't exist, if god himself can't even seem to nail it the first time.

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Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion." -- Charlie Chaplin

I have trouble when Atheists use words like Honorable and Humane though, in a world of blind chance of cause and effect where morals are decided by society and culture, where there is no meaning or point to life or anything it strikes me odd that you use such words

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I know many Atheists agree with Richard Dawkins if you are not in that camp I apologize.

ah, still the attempts to try to claim that all atheists think the same by trying to capitalize “atheist”. And it’s hysterical that you try to claim Dawkins is a nihilist now. What an “apology”. You just keep trying to lie and think we are dumb enough to not notice No, dear, your lies are still failing. We humans who have no believe in your god or any gods have many many different approaches to life.

The quote from Dawkins that you so badly misused is saying that the *universe” has no particular purpose. He never has said that human existence has no purpose. Nice try at quote-mining and trying misrepresent someone there but as always that fails. All you have done is lie about atheists in order to keep up your own willful ignorance and your desperation to feel special and superior to those who dont’ agree with your baseless claims. It’s so amusing to watch Christians lie for such petty reasons. You claim that you’ve “heard many quotes that life is purposeless” but you can’t even get one posted. You have to try your best to make believe it says something it doesn’t. How sad. Oh and coink, I don’t give a damn what Dawkins says. It might be right, it might not be. he’s just a man, not some “messiah” that you so desperately want him to be.

And ooooh, now you capitalize “grounding”. Does that make it more real, coink? No, it doesn’t, just more posturing by a Christian. If you want to discuss how changeable morals are well, I just have to look at Christianity and how it always changes after society decides that an actions is wrong or right. It never leads but only follows, sure that it has some magical truth from some invisible friend. So much for claims about some eternal “right” that your religion has. That has never been demonstrated, no god that has some special message that has held true over the millennia. Each generation of theists have to re-write what they claim their god “really” meant. At best, you can claim that your god mumbles or that humans just screw up things repeatedly and yoru god is unble to do anything. Notmuch of a omnipotent, omniscient or omnibenevolent god if it can’t or won’t do that.

and hmmm, torturing babies is always bad? So when your god demanded that there be foreskins ripped off them, your god was bad? Nice to know.

No he's not. Why would you assume I think he would be? That's ridiculous. He has no compassion and is judging himself superior which the Bible forbids so he is going against the teaching of Christianity to do this. Whenever you see people picketing abortion clinics or politicians or such, Know that they are going against the teachings of scripture. I can tell you a girl at my church got pregnant and the church has done nothing but loved her and helped her and that's what Jesus would have done because he was the friend of sinners, and yes I believe getting pregnant out of wedlock is a sin. But I also understand that I am a sinful man and am no better and have done worse. I have to confess and repent daily as do all christians.

funny how your god said to do exactly that, to abandon your family if they don’t follow this god. A dear friend of mine was cast out of his house by his pastor father because he was gay. Your god says that homosexuals deserve death so I guess he got off “easy”. A sadly funny postscript to this story is that my friend’s father died of AIDS since he was also gay. Your bible, and thus your god has no compassion. No, it has obey or die, that’s it. I do love to see the usual OneTrueChristiantm claims by you, coink, and you without any more evidence that your “interpretations” are any more right than the abortion protestors. Christians can’t even agree on if they do indeed have to “repent daily” or not. Always amusing to see the confusion on such supposed “truths”.

Oh yes, and you’ve failed ot answr some questions, coink. Not suprising, but you are asked to do so. You have been asked to prove your claims about slavery in the bible, not to try to change the question. If you can’t support your claims, you’ve lied either intentionally or out of ignorance of your own bible. More of my questions not answered: So is the resurrection a metaphor or not? How do you know? Now if this actually did happen, that the believers in JC did have the magical powers that he promised them, why does no one talk about it? Why do Christians fail so badly? Are they not really followers of Jesus Christ and that's why they have no miracle abilities? So you don't eat shrimp, don't wear mixed fiber clothing, give away all you have, live in communal situations sharing money, and living spaces, etc?

and as always, why haven’t you healed anyone, coink?

As for the “rape stuff” that you wonder where it’s coming from, it’s more examples on how your bible is a primitive set of books that has no god given magical “truth” in it whatsoever. Your god is the invention of the same primitive human beings. Nothing about it can be demonstrated as real or special.

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

What is an example of something that is "actually wrong no matter what"?

Torturing babies.

Like when there heads are dashed upon the stones?

How about them being clutched in there mothers arms as the flood waters grow higher in a duluge, listening to the mother's desperated last gasps for breath as they hold the babe above their head, then them in turn, also end up being drowned as a boatload of animals drifts away in the distance?

How about when they happen to live in a town called Sodom as the house they are in is set ablaze and crushed under fire and brimstone?

Sounds like torture to me.

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

Sorry I haven't answered all these questions. I am at work now. I had a few hours to kill the other day when I started the thread. I'm thinking about starting a few separate threads to deal with the separate issues that have beenaddressed in this one since it's drifted far from the original topic. For the record the problems some of you have with me capitalizing words is something I hadn't foreseen as a problem. I capitalized for emphasis. I have never been good at punctuation and grammar. I wasn't trying to push anything. I guess I'll have to reread all the posts to see also what I'm supposedly lying about. This is a complaint I hear often on these kinds of forums. I may be mistakenabout certain things but I'm not intentionally lying. We're talking philosophy here and i want to be careful. I am studying through some of the arguments posters have made and I'm reading and studying the verses about the children issue and slavery. It may take some time but I want to debate these issues calmly and rationally if possible. I apologize for any negative comments I have made to any member personally I haven't done it intentionally. Chris

The hospital is just 12 km from my office, for the last five days we were hoping that she would make it alive. She was front page news here every day, the news channels would constantly update about her fight. We watched on helplessly, too late. If you are going to start a new thread, this is a good topic. Tell me why your god let Afreen die? Where was your almighty smiter when the baby was tortured by her father (or mother)?

Sadly, this is not an unique incident, but five days of watching her agony makes me ask it as a singularity. WHY DID HE CHOOSE TO WATCH HER SUFFER AND DIE?[1]

“Capitalize for emphasis”? I’m sorry but I don’t believe your excuse for a second. You were *repeatedly* told that you were wrong for doing that and why and you refused to change.

If you are corrected about something that you are mistaken about and continue to claim that this is the truth, then you are lying. You have made claims that all atheists think the same. You have been shown that is wrong. So, any further statements that claim that atheists are the same are lies. Get it?

I don’t see that we are only talking philosophy here. You have made claims that only your type of Christianity is the “true” one. That is something that can hypothetically tested, by a Christian evincing the qualities promised by the supposed savior of your religion. You have ignored my question on why you can’t do any of this. You have tried to claim that slavery was “different” in the old days and you have been shown that was totally wrong. There is no reading and studing verses that will change this fact. You have claimed that your god somehow gives ‘objective” morality, but have yet to show that this is the case. You have refused to acknowledge that your magic book and the god purportedly described in it has commanded and approved of many horrible things. Again, no amount of reading and praying and “interpretation” will change that fact.

It will not suprise me in the least if we never hear from you again, or if we do, it will be in a few weeks or months, and yuo will have the same poor arguments.

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

Here is my take. God knew these people were going to be amputated. He knew they were going to lose a limb. If he didn't want them to he wouldn't have allowed them to lose a limb in the first place.

You are missing the point of the question.

There is a certian type of xian who attempts to justify his or her god beliefs by claiming that people are miraculously healed of various afflictions by divine intervention. The afflictions may include cancer, diabetes, coma, heart conditions, tooth decay, halitosis, spastic colon, etc. We frequently hear anecdotes about how some church group prayed for some guy and the next day he was completely healed.

But there are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, data shows many of these types of afflictions sometimes "clear up" without any kind of prayers. It seems to be a natural response or a misdiagnosis. Second, people of all religions make the same claims. Third, following your logic, why let them get sick in the first place if they were going to be healed by god in the end? And last, there is a whole class of ailments that are never, ever cured by prayer or naturally.

People never regrow lost limbs. Lost eyes never regrow in the empty sockets. Retarded people never gain normal mental capacity. Alzheimers and Dementia sufferers never recover. Old people never rejuvenate.

This has clear implications about a god that supposedly heals people. It leaves you only a few conclusions about such a god.

Now, if you are not the kind of xian who claims miraculous healings, then this question, why won’t god heal amputees, does not apply to you.

I have trouble when Atheists use words like Honorable and Humane though, ..These things that you describe they are just things that happen if you are an Atheist there is no sort of moral value to them.

I wanted to punch your lights out when I read that. Seriously. I still kind of want to, even now. I am sick to death of hearing from xians how I lack morals. You think you know what it is like to be us. You think you know how we think. You think you understand our position on various issues. But you haven’t got a clue. And you never bother to ask before shooting off your big, fat mouths. And even worse – when we try to correct you about what we think, you have the gall to argue with us.

You have been lied to by your leaders, be they priests, ministers, apologists, writers, bloggers, whomever. They have made us out to be the opposite of all you hold to be good and true. And that is a lie. We are no different than you. They have created bigotry and you have bought into it. And that makes me very angry.

You should ask yourself, why do they do that? Why do your religious leaders portray us as being so horrible? What do they have to gain by it? I think the simplest answer is, to make abandoning their influence appear to be completely unattractive. Right now, they have influence over you, but not me. If they said “sure, atheists are decent, moral people, but they just believe differently,” that might make non-belief a plausible alternative. And they certainly don’t want that to be a possibility.

Here’s a thought. Take something written by one of your guys about atheists. Paste it into a Word document. Then, do a find & replace function, finding “atheist” and replace it with “jew” or “nigger”. See how it reads.

Once again I don't think Atheists are immoral I just think you have no Grounding for your morality if it's decided by society and culture and is subject to change. If it's subjective you can't really call anything wrong can you?

If we cannot call anything moral, then you are saying we have no morals and you distinction is lost. You are saying we are completely amoral, which is also a lie.

Once again I don't think Atheists are immoral I just think you have no Grounding for your morality if it's decided by society and culture and is subject to change. If it's subjective you can't really call anything wrong can you?

It is subject to change and that is a good thing. If it wasn’t subject to change, we would still be living by biblical moral codes, which is kind of the point of bringing up slavery. Morality has improved over the centuries. Yet, the bible has not been updated to reflect that. Why not? Why leave in the misleading, conflicting, contradictory messages? If god really doesn’t want us to own each other, why not codify that explicitly and take out the passages that contradict that?

Let me ask you a question I have asked xians before and have not received an answer. According to you and your bible, yhwh gave Moses a set of rules for people to live by. It included not killing, not stealing, not fucking your neighbor’s wife – all the basics required for people to function as a group. But it also included some weird things, like not eating meat with milk, not wearing clothes of mixed fibers, and some horrible things, like stoning your children for disobedience and making rape victims marry their rapists.

The question: If yhwh saw fit to include those obvious, weird and horrible rules, why is there no commandment explicitly forbidding owning people?

You cannot say it didn’t occur to them. Slavery happened back then, just like killing, stealing and adultery. So it was obviously a topic that needed to be addressed. But why was there no commandment forbidding it? And you cannot say it was so obvious it did not need codifying. I mean, they had to be told to not kill each other for chrissakes. So why no commandment against slavery?

I think the simplest answer is, those rules were all man made.

And if you are grounding your morality in god’s say so, then is that not also subject to change? It is very obvious that your morals are not the same as the Iron Age Hebrews’. So at some point, they have changed. Even worse, your moral standards are at the whim of a capricious deity who, as many xians are fond of proclaiming, owes us nothing, not even consistency.

As an aside, an interesting take on religion and modern morality by Anthony Grayling. This is from the 2007 Intelligence squared debate where he teamed up with Hitchens and Dawkins to address the question of whether we would be better off without religion.

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"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

Let me ask you a question I have asked xians before and have not received an answer. According to you and your bible, yhwh gave Moses a set of rules for people to live by. It included not killing, not stealing, not fucking your neighbor’s wife – all the basics required for people to function as a group. But it also included some weird things, like not eating meat with milk, not wearing clothes of mixed fibers, and some horrible things, like stoning your children for disobedience and making rape victims marry their rapists.

The question: If yhwh saw fit to include those obvious, weird and horrible rules, why is there no commandment explicitly forbidding owning people?

You cannot say it didn’t occur to them. Slavery happened back then, just like killing, stealing and adultery. So it was obviously a topic that needed to be addressed. But why was there no commandment forbidding it? And you cannot say it was so obvious it did not need codifying. I mean, they had to be told to not kill each other for chrissakes. So why no commandment against slavery?

I think the simplest answer is, those rules were all man made.

And if you are grounding your morality in god’s say so, then is that not also subject to change? It is very obvious that your morals are not the same as the Iron Age Hebrews’. So at some point, they have changed. Even worse, your moral standards are at the whim of a capricious deity who, as many xians are fond of proclaiming, owes us nothing, not even consistency.

I think it's very telling that our of these vital 10 rules, we only recognize one as always being illegal to break.

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Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion." -- Charlie Chaplin

Let's be nice and assume you actually had just made a valid point. That biblical slavery was slightly different. You are still saying that it was all right to enslave and own another human being as property. Even if it was only a few years. Does that really make you feel righteous and moral that you had to sugar-coat slavery just to defend your god?

Tell me if slavery is accepted by a society and culture is it wrong? So is slavery Objectively absolutely wrong? By what standard is it wrong?

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You are still saying that it was all right to enslave and own another human being as property.

According to that culture and society it was. And you would say so too if you are consistent with the Atheist philosophy that morals are decided by society and culture.Personally I don't like it and I don't agree with it and I'm glad I don't live in that society.

One thing that Christians always say is that their god is unchanging and will never change. If that is true then you should still believe that slavery is ok because he obviously does. Also, if it's wrong now and the bible's morals are objective, shouldn't it have been wrong back then? In other words, god should not have been giving out advice about how to treat slaves, he should have been condemning people for having slaves. lol how can you not see that?

I think it's very telling that our of these vital 10 rules, we only recognize one as always being illegal to break.

I think what is more telling is the only one yhwh ever punished anyone for breaking in the OT was not worshipping him. The hebrews in the bible did every manner of sin - lie, murder, steal, slut it up. But the only time they were punished by yhwh was when they worshipped other gods. Tells you where murder fits into yhwh's priorities.

How about providing us some scientific facts that support the conclusion "The Bible is true and God is real". We've asked the same of every believer who comes here. We have yet to be presented with a single piece of actual evidence to support such a claim.

I think what is more telling is the only one yhwh ever punished anyone for breaking in the OT was not worshipping him. The hebrews in the bible did every manner of sin - lie, murder, steal, slut it up. But the only time they were punished by yhwh was when they worshipped other gods. Tells you where murder fits into yhwh's priorities.

Joshua 7:1-26 Achan lied and stole and was punished, severely for it.King David was cursed for lying murder adultery for generations, his whole family suffered for his sin.

That's bad morality right there, you are punished for anothers wrongdoing. The concept is primitive and uncivilized.

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

Joshua 7:1-26 Achan lied and stole and was punished, severely for it.King David was cursed for lying murder adultery for generations, his whole family suffered for his sin.

fair point. Let me ammend my statement. Hardly anyone was ever punished by yhwh for any sin other than idolatry. Whole nations were punished for idolatry.

And here's a question for you. Since every bad thing that had happened to the jewish nation collectively was explained in the OT has having been from idolatry, do you think the persecution of jews in nazi germany was also a collective punishment arranged by yhwh because of idolatry? Whichever way you answer, why or why not?

That's no more than an illustration that a broken clock is occasionally correct. There are thousands of ludicrous inaccurate things posited by the Bible, but seven things, (some only if you squint hard through apologetic lenses) does not prove anything. Plenty of legends have a fact or two correct. Do you accept the Greek Gods interfering in the Trojan war because archaeological evidence shows that the war happened?

« Last Edit: April 13, 2012, 02:20:56 PM by Hatter23 »

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

Every Christian I've ever met so far who tries to go the "textual criticism" route has quickly demonstrated they don't even really understand what this means or how to do it. Instead they used textual criticism as a euphemism for "twist the words around until it says what I want it to say". It will be fascinating to see if you disappoint as well.

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Bart Ehrman was mentored by Bruce Metzger of Princeton University who was the greatest manuscript scholar of the last century. In 2005, Ehrman helped Metzger update and revise the classic work on the topic– Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament.What do Metzger and Ehrman conclude together in that revised work?Ehrman and Metzger state in that book that we can have a high degree of confidence that we can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament, the text that is in the Bibles we use, because of the abundance of textual evidence we have to compare. The variations are largely minor and don’t obscure our ability to construct an accurate text. The 4th edition of this work was published in 2005 - the same year Ehrman published Misquoting Jesus, which relies on the same body of information and offers no new or different evidence to state the opposite conclusion.

Here’s what Ehrman says in an interview found in the appendix of Misquoting Jesus (p. 252):

Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions - he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not - we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement - maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

there would be very few points of disagreement - maybe one or two dozen places out of many 2 dozen that's 24 roughly.he essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament. Bart Ehrman

We can go over some stuff point by point and I'm sure we will in the future but

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twist the words around until it says what I want it to say.

is not what I'm going to do. The new testament is consistent even Bart Ehrman would agree.

The earth is hung on nothing just as today's space photos so clearly show.

But, the verse from Job cited to support this also says, a few verses later, "The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke. " Curiously, we have yet to get a picture of the "pillars of Heaven". The Bible also says that the stars are fixed in a firmament and that the earth is a circle. Neither of those claims are true. A quote from Job, taken out of context, that does nothing at ALL to provide evidence of the claims "The Bible is true and God is real". Even if the quote means what this says, it doesn't lend any evidence to the extraordinary claims of the Bible, nor excuse the numerous other errors in the Bible (like, insects have 4 legs).

I could address the other 6 points that this site addresses, but they are all as much or more tenuous, deceptive, and mundane that it would truly be a waste of effort. Especially since they do not provide evidence of the claims "The Bible is true and God is real".

It is becoming rather clear that your definition of "evidence" is much different than mine. Again, VERY tenuous links based on (what else?) the Bible, which, of course cannot be used as evidence of the Bible's truth. There is no real, credible evidence to support the claims that "The Bible is true and God is real''. Evidence that would prove that claim might come in the form of evidence of a massive, world wide, 29,050 rainfall occurring about 4,500 years ago. No such evidence exists. Hence, there is no reason to believe in Noah's flood, a pivotal story in the Bible.

""He stretches out the north over EMPTY SPACE. He hangs the earth on NOTHING." (Job 26:7, NKJV throughout unless noted)." This is the first proof of the bible that it lists. Other ancient cultures believed that the earth rested on something, but the bible says it was nothing (which they claim is apparently true) and that proves it's right.

Oh boy, here we go.

First off, no the bible is not the only cosmology that claims that the earth doesn't rest on nothing. One example is zoroastrianism. Secondly, the earth is not hung on "nothing". It's kept in place through gravity and centrifugal force. Third, this is not even remotely scientific. It's a claim with no evidence, no legitimate theory stated that could have been thought up by any primitive goatherder.

I like how that site treats it like a major insight. It tries to portray the idea that the earth was just floating in space as a great and revolutionary idea that no one could have possibly thought of.

Ok, let's try "fact" two.

" "In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP WERE BROKEN UP, and the windows of heaven were opened." (Genesis 7:11)

The word translated as "fountains" in the above verse (Hebrew: ????? ????? ????, Strong's Concordance #H4599) can mean springs or wells in addition to fountains. Are there really fountains or springs in the oceans? If your answer is that the Bible was wrong about that, you would have seemed correct for some 3,000 years. Correct until 1977 that is. Despite sixty years of modern submarine activity, ocean springs were unknown and undiscovered until 1977.

In 1977, with only 5% of the ocean floor explored, scientists found springs in the ocean off the coast of Ecuador. (3) They were found at an ocean depth of 1 1/2 miles (2.4 kilometers)! These springs contained super-heated water of about 450 degrees. "

So.....ok. So IF you translate the word a certain way it can mean springs or wells. And there are underground wells in the ocean. Just as there are well and springs underground on dry land and inside of lakes, which should have been entirely known to those people. So this is hardly a stretch. By the way, so far scientists have found sixe of these in the whole ocean, but I digress.

Furthremore we get this bit. "Some Bible skeptics claim the oceans and the atmosphere together do not contain enough water to cover the earth to the depth needed to reach above the mountains, as was the case in the great flood. This criticism does not hold up because the Bible says the springs in the oceans were broken up at the time of the flood, which would increase their flow.

How much extra water could the broken up springs produce?"

Well, in order to flood the earth you need a little over three times the amount of water already present in the oceans and as vapour in the atmosphere already. So there had better be a damn lot down there.

Number three.Are no NEW cells created?

I'll be honest. I've got nothing for this. It's so utterly non-sensical I can't tell which argument it's trying to make. Something about cells only arising from a pre-existing cell and this proving something about Abrahams loins........ I have no idea. If someone else wants to read it go ahead.

Every Christian I've ever met so far who tries to go the "textual criticism" route has quickly demonstrated they don't even really understand what this means or how to do it. Instead they used textual criticism as a euphemism for "twist the words around until it says what I want it to say". It will be fascinating to see if you disappoint as well.

Quote

Bart Ehrman was mentored by Bruce Metzger of Princeton University who was the greatest manuscript scholar of the last century. In 2005, Ehrman helped Metzger update and revise the classic work on the topic– Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament.What do Metzger and Ehrman conclude together in that revised work?Ehrman and Metzger state in that book that we can have a high degree of confidence that we can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament, the text that is in the Bibles we use, because of the abundance of textual evidence we have to compare. The variations are largely minor and don’t obscure our ability to construct an accurate text. The 4th edition of this work was published in 2005 - the same year Ehrman published Misquoting Jesus, which relies on the same body of information and offers no new or different evidence to state the opposite conclusion.

Here’s what Ehrman says in an interview found in the appendix of Misquoting Jesus (p. 252):

Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions - he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not - we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement - maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

there would be very few points of disagreement - maybe one or two dozen places out of many 2 dozen that's 24 roughly.he essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament. Bart Ehrman

We can go over some stuff point by point and I'm sure we will in the future but

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twist the words around until it says what I want it to say.

is not what I'm going to do. The new testament is consistent even Bart Ehrman would agree.

And Bart Ehrman is, of course, always right about everything..........

So in other words you're going with an appeal to authority. You're really just here to waste my time aren't you?

Logged

"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

Joshua 7:1-26 Achan lied and stole and was punished, severely for it.King David was cursed for lying murder adultery for generations, his whole family suffered for his sin.

fair point. Let me ammend my statement. Hardly anyone was ever punished by yhwh for any sin other than idolatry. Whole nations were punished for idolatry.

And here's a question for you. Since every bad thing that had happened to the jewish nation collectively was explained in the OT has having been from idolatry, do you think the persecution of jews in nazi germany was also a collective punishment arranged by yhwh because of idolatry? Whichever way you answer, why or why not?

Thank you for ammending your statement. The fact that Hardly anyone was ever punished by yhwh for any sin other than idolatry doesn't mean they weren't punished for those things. The Bible doesn't record everything that happened but I see your point. I will be honest, I don't like everything that happened in the Bible. I am trying to understand it all better. I've told people before that if I could be talked out of my Christianity I would be. I think it would take some doing though if not impossible. I have studied comparative religions and the history and archeology of the Bible for 20 years along with apologetics and I've studied debates. On top of that my personal relationship with Christ is very real, I have experienced answered prayer and known his presence in ways I can't explain. But if I felt the Bible was untrue and Christianity was false I would walk away and never look back.

Anyway about your question.

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Do you think the persecution of jews in nazi germany was also a collective punishment arranged by yhwh because of idolatry?

I'm in the process of going through this entire thread and answering questions I missed from the beginning and trying to answer them. I want to think about your question, look up some information about it and get back to you. Sometimes on other forums and on this one I'll answer a question too quickly and I don't want to do that. I have to work tonight and when I have down time I will study and think about some of these questions.

I do think God punishes people collectively though, it's done over and over in scripture, I'm just not sure that's what was happing in WWII.

The earth is hung on nothing just as today's space photos so clearly show.

But, the verse from Job cited to support this also says, a few verses later, "The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke. " Curiously, we have yet to get a picture of the "pillars of Heaven". The Bible also says that the stars are fixed in a firmament and that the earth is a circle. Neither of those claims are true. A quote from Job, taken out of context, that does nothing at ALL to provide evidence of the claims "The Bible is true and God is real". Even if the quote means what this says, it doesn't lend any evidence to the extraordinary claims of the Bible, nor excuse the numerous other errors in the Bible (like, insects have 4 legs).

I could address the other 6 points that this site addresses, but they are all as much or more tenuous, deceptive, and mundane that it would truly be a waste of effort. Especially since they do not provide evidence of the claims "The Bible is true and God is real".

It is becoming rather clear that your definition of "evidence" is much different than mine. Again, VERY tenuous links based on (what else?) the Bible, which, of course cannot be used as evidence of the Bible's truth. There is no real, credible evidence to support the claims that "The Bible is true and God is real''. Evidence that would prove that claim might come in the form of evidence of a massive, world wide, 29,050 rainfall occurring about 4,500 years ago. No such evidence exists. Hence, there is no reason to believe in Noah's flood, a pivotal story in the Bible.

Again, where is the actual evidence here? If this is the best you've got, I feel embarrassed for you.

OK, Co. I scanned those sights also, and I will address them when I get the chance. But let me just agree Kaz for a minute. If you want to do this, and not look like a total idiot. You need to at least learn what evidence is.

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"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

wow, what hilarious links. Let’s look at that first link. It claims to have seven whole discoveries that prove the bible. Hmmm, the first one claims that the discover of gravity proved the bible. Hilarious since the bible says nothing about gravity at all. It claims that the earth is hanging in space and that there are pillars supporting it. More lies from Christians who want to claim that their magic decoder ring is the only “right” interpretation source. There is nothing about gravity and orbits that indicating anything is hanging on “nothing”.

Oh number 2 is even better. The poor things claim that since there are black smokers in the oceans, this means that the bible’s claim “ 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.’ must. be true. What’s great about his is that we have no idea what “great deep” means, though one indeed could assume the oceans. Pity that there is no evidence at all for any rain happening for 40 days and 40 nights or any global flood or any massive break up of any “fountains” under the oceans, or any voids that this water could have come from. I love how this whole article uses citations from other creationist claims which have no evidence to support them at all, for instance the claim “"There is probably as much water circulating under the sea floor as there is in the oceans above.” well, the citation is “Creation Corner article "Evolution and Humans are just Animals". Wow,how could I ever doubt basless nonsense!

This next one needs to be quoted directly “Biblical Scientific Fact #3 Are no NEW cells created?” More attempts to claim that since we haven’t been able to create cells, poof! that means that only the Christian god can. The god of the gaps argument and the ignorant attempt to claim that their god is the only one. Funny how Christians also claimed that only god could heal people but now humans can.

#4 is an oldie but goodie. The poor Christians try to claim that since we’ve found some of the cities mentioned in the bible, why that means that their god exists! Golly, since we know that Athens exists, that must mean that Athena and Posiedon exist too since the myths of that religion also mentioned real cities and people. Pity that they can’t find actual evidence of the important events of the bible e.g. the “exodus”, the supposedly great cities and temples of David and Solomon, etc.

#5 is the claim that the bible’s authors knew about wind currents. Why yes they did and so did the Sumerians, the Chinese, Polynesians, etc, and all without any information from a Judeo Chrisitan god at all. It’s not hard to figure out that the wind moves in predictable patterns. Or do Christians think that people can’t figure such things out? The other problem with this claim is that it’s in with some other ridiculous things that the Christians ignore. For instance the verse right abouve the one they claim is some divine information says “5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.” A lovely bit of evidence that the authors of the bible thought the sun circled the earth. It doesn’t at all. Or how about this one “Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.” a big fail on that one too. Physics indicates that it likely will be gone in about 5 billion years when the sun expands and destroys it. This is always a good one: “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.” Pity that Christians give their beliefs lip service but when push comes to shove they use all of that bad ol’ wisdom and knowledge to make their lives easier.

#6 claims that the bible knew what matter was made out of. Their versical proof? Isaiah 40:12 Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales. Look, He (God) lifts up the isles as a very little thing." - KJV The NIV has it this way: Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.”

oh darn, they can’t even get their verses right. You see, it’s actually Isaiah 40:15, not 12. Silly people. So we have a verse that says that nations are little to god, and are dust, and this god can lift up islands as little things. From this, these Christians get that they can’t possibly take this as literal and “there’s a lot of empty space in matter”. ROFL. that right there has to be one of the most utterly dishonest and hilarious Christian claims ever. this is just more figurative language, yep we can see the word “like” and “as” there, and this is just more sycophantic sucking up to God by declaring well, the context will tell you that: 15Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. 16And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 17All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. 18To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?”

And we finish up with #7, the shape of the earth. I always love this one since it takes so much dishonesty and ignorance of the bible. It’s the same moronic claim that the bible’s claim that the earth is a circle must mean it’s a sphere. No, it doesn’t. The word for circule is not the word for sphere. The authors of the bible knew what spheres were. It’s a shame that Christians are so desperate to claim that they did not and evidently too ignorant to use their own words correctly. The bible goes on to support the idea that the authors were only familiar with a flat earth by claiming that the earth was formed like clay under a seal e.g. flattened out; that one could see all of the earth from a mountain, impossible on a sphere; that one could grasp the edges of the earth and shake it like a sheet; that to measure the earth one only has to measure “across” it rather than “around” it; and that it rests on pillars. I know, coink, you’ll try to claim metaphor, etc, but that is a problem for you when it coems to other ridiculous claims that you are sure are literal.